World Enough, and Time
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: The past: Chris and Josh travel through time, searching for a way to stop Wyatt. The present: The Charmed Ones prepare for the arrival of Piper's baby, fighting an Underworld that wants to capture or kill the Twice-Blessed Child. And the future? Well, what happens there is anyone's guess.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Here we are, the fourth installment of _Down the Twisted Path_. As always, a million thank yous to my amazing beta, **liron-aria**, for all her help with this chapter.

This fic jumps around a lot between different time settings, so pay attention to the date headers on certain chapters.

* * *

_**May, 2026**_

Chris orbed into Valhalla, and then sighed at the sight that greeted him. A trio of scowling, crossbow-wielding Valkyries were blocking his path, weapons pointed straight at his heart. The leader of the trio stepped forward and gestured at him with her bow, and Chris sighed, putting his hands in the air.

"Do we really have to go through the every time?" he demanded, watching the Valkyries out of the corners of his eyes as they warily circled him. He didn't dare move with them; the one time he'd tried that, one of the younger ones had panicked and shot him in the ass. Josh still wouldn't let him live that one down.

"Search him," the leader commanded, rather than answering.

The other two stepped forward to briskly and efficiently pat him down. They quickly divested him of all the weapons he was carrying, laying them on the ground just out of his reach, and then they stepped back in line with the leader. They were silent the entire time.

Chris wracked his brain to try and remember any of their names. But, the Valkyries were an elusive bunch, even on their own island, and the majority of the demigoddesses preferred to have little to no contact with the Resistance. Leo called it sensible, Cole called it snobbishness. Chris figured it was natural caution, mixed with reservations over Josh and Prue's presence on their island. No matter that his cousins' allegiance had been to the side of good for their entire lives, some of the Valkyries just couldn't get past the fact that two of the Halliwell witches were also half demon.

_'We've been here for six months,'_ Chris grumbled, in the privacy of his own mind. _'You'd think they could learn to live and let live.'_

But, then, the Valkyries had allowed them to take sanctuary on the island despite Josh and Prue's demonic heritage, so maybe they weren't as upset about it as he'd previously thought. Maybe, despite their reservations, they realized that the two witches were powerful and valuable allies.

_'Or,'_ a voice spoke up cheerfully, in his head, _'the Valkyries are just as affected by this Hell on Earth as we are, and they're realistic enough to realize that they have to do some damn distasteful things to survive. And for them, that means allowing a couple of demons into their sanctuary.'_

_'Half demons,'_ Chris corrected, automatically. _'Josh, I thought I told you to stay out of my head.'_

_'Well, it's kind of hard to mind my own business when you're broadcasting your feelings over the entire island,'_ his cousin drawled.

_'Or,'_ Chris countered, _'you're just a nosy telepath with a shiny, new power.'_

Then, he realized that the leader of the trio was standing in front of him, glaring impatiently, and he smiled apologetically as he focused his attention back on her.

"Sorry," he tried. "Hey, if I was really a demon imposter, don't you think Josh or one of the other psychics in the Resistance would have sounded me out, by now?"

"Open," the leader ordered, brusquely, and Chris bit back a sigh.

Obediently, he opened his mouth, and the Valkyrie held up a small vial of clear liquid, tipping a couple of drops onto his tongue. A cold sensation swept through his entire body, and he flexed his fingers to try and fight off the numbness that overtook his limbs. He glanced at the Valkyrie, who was still watching him, suspiciously.

"Tell me your name," she snapped.

"Christopher Samuel Halliwell," he answered, promptly. He didn't even bother trying to fight the truth potion; it would just make him look suspicious, and if he just let it work through his system, it would wear off faster.

"What is your mission here?" the Valkyrie pressed, insistently.

"I'm working with the Resistance to try and find a way to stop my brother, Wyatt, from taking over the world," Chris told her. "And that's what I'd like to get back to doing, if you're done with your interrogation."

"You are truthful," the Valkyrie said, flatly. She and her sisters moved aside, to let him move past them on the path. "You may go."

"Thank you," Chris said, keeping the impatience out of his voice as he gathered his weapons up and started to the huts that the Resistance was living in.

He didn't blame the Valkyries for being cautious; in their place, he had the feeling that he would have done the same thing. Had done, actually, when the Resistance had spent time running from safe house to safe house, before they'd settled in Valhalla.

And it was only now, after half a year on the secluded island, that many of their members actually started feeling safe, again. Chris had heard Parker laugh the other day, the first time in nearly a year. It had actually taken him a moment to recognize the sound, it had been so long. And there'd been tears in Josh's eyes, when he'd seen the smile on his baby sister's face.

_'We have to fix this,'_ Chris thought, fiercely. _'We have to fix this, so that Prue and Parker never forget how to laugh.'_

_'We're going to fix this,'_ Josh sent into his mind, and Chris groaned at the realization that his cousin was still eavesdropping.

_'Didn't I tell you-'_

_'Yeah, yeah,'_ Josh interrupted him. _'I'll stop eavesdropping when you stop projecting.'_

_'It's easier for one person-'_ Chris started, but then he trailed off when he saw Josh standing on the path in front of him. "It's easier for you to maintain shields against us," he said, out loud, "than for all of us to shield against you. Not to mention, you've had more practice."

"I've been trying to keep my shields up," Josh told him, sighing. "It's just this place, there's something that tears apart my control over my powers. Whatever I can manage is spotty at best."

"If your powers are out of whack," Chris asked, as Josh fell into step beside him, "then how come you're always in my head?"

"Because it's so much fun to go to the extra effort to annoy you," Josh teased him, and Chris grinned as he pulled his cousin into a hug. "Man, I missed you," Josh went on. "No one else has your sense of humor."

"What about the girls?" Chris asked,

Josh chuckled. "Prue, much to Dad's consternation, has managed to convince a couple of the Valkyries to teach her how to fight. Parker, naturally, is tagging along. Whenever they're not sleeping or eating, they're training, and none of us have actually seen them for more than a few seconds, lately."

"When Prue said that she wasn't going to be left out of the fight, she wasn't kidding," Chris commented.

"She and Parker are really throwing themselves into this whole thing," Josh replied, sighing.

"Hey," Chris said, clapping Josh on the back, "if we we're good, and we fix this, Prue and Parker won't ever have to fight."

"I hope you're right," Josh said, and then the rest of their conversation was cut off by their arrival at the large meeting hall the Resistance used as headquarters.

They found only a few of their fellow fighters waiting for them. Ava and Christy were playing chess, Ava kicking butt, like usual. Billie was curled up with a book, using her telekinesis to flip slowly through the pages. Sam and Cole were studying a series of large maps that had been spread out over the rough-hewn wooden table. Sam was gesturing to something as they walked in, his attention focused on the tattered paper as he pointed something out to Cole.

Chris was unsurprised to see more gray peppering Cole's black hair. Ever since Phoebe's death, Chris had watched his uncle age a year for every day she was gone. The only things keeping him going these days were his kids, which was why Chris was so determined to keep anything from happening to Prue and Parker.

What he hadn't been expecting, though, were the signs of age in Sam. The older Whitelighter looked like he'd been dragged through hell. There were shadows under his eyes, deep furrows in his skin, and a new scar that ran along his forehead, disappearing into his hairline.

"What happened?" Chris hissed, nodding minutely at Sam, as he and Josh paused in the doorway.

"Well," Josh said, drawing the word out, "let's see. We're constantly under attack by Wyatt's forces, the Elders assigned Aunt Paige to charges on the other side of the world and we haven't seen her in over a year, and _you_ took on a week-long mission, after being held captive by Wyatt for the last three months. I can't imagine why Sam would possibly be worried."

"Smart ass," Chris muttered under his breath. "I'm sorry I was out of contact, okay? I was a little busy."

"Yeah, well," Josh retorted, "if you do it again, I'm going to kick your ass. And I have a feeling that Sam will be next in line."

"Followed by Prue, and Parker, and Cole-" Chris finished for him. "I get it. I'm sorry."

Glancing past his cousin, Chris saw that Sam had abandoned his study of the maps and was staring at him with an inscrutable look on his face. Chris smiled at Sam, and Sam moved away from the table to embrace him, wrapping Chris in a tight hug.

"Don't you ever do that again," Sam muttered, as he held him, and Chris relaxed at the affection he heard in his surrogate grandfather's voice.

"I missed you, too, Grandpa," Chris told him, as he pulled away. "I'm sorry about being out of contact. I won't do it, again."

"I think I remember hearing that about the first time you borrowed your mother's car, or when you snuck the Book out of the house, or when-"

"Okay, enough!" Chris laughed. "Am I ever going to live down any of the stupid stuff I did as a kid?"

"Eventually," Sam confided in him. "Right about the time your kids are old enough to start doing the same stupid stuff."

"So it's never-ending," Chris groused, good-naturedly, and Sam grinned.

"Pretty much, kid," he told him. "We missed you around here," he added, ruffling Chris's hair. "_Everyone_ missed you."

Chris didn't miss the emphasis in Sam's words, or the pointed look he shot across the hall, to where Leo was looking through the makeshift Book of Shadows that they'd put together in the absence of the real one. His father hadn't looked up at him once since his arrival, but Chris didn't think for a second that Leo was unaware of his presence. Leo knew everything that went on around him. He just chose to ignore the parts of it that involved Chris.

"I missed the girls, too," Chris finally said, deliberately misunderstanding Sam's words, and the older man heaved a frustrated sigh.

"You, two," he started, but then he trailed off, shaking his head. "Both of you are as stubborn as a pair of mules," he muttered, under his breath, and Chris cracked a tiny grin.

"I had to inherit something from him," he replied.

He followed Sam over to the table, where Josh had joined his father. Cole was affixing small stickers to the topmost map, red for the places that Wyatt controlled, and blue for the few spots where the Resistance still had a stronghold. There were a depressingly low number of blue stickers on the map.

"That one's red, now," Chris informed Cole, tapping a blue dot near the pier, and his uncle cursed softly under his breath. "X found us."

"And you made it out alive?" Cole remarked, as he placed a red sticker over the blue. "Not that I don't doubt your abilities, kid-"

"Trust me," Chris interrupted him, "I'm surprised we made it out alive. Well, almost all of us."

"Who'd we lose?" Josh asked, scowling darkly.

"Deena and Malcolm," Chris replied, heavily. "Deena killed Malcolm."

His voice cracked on Malcolm's name, and he was swamped with grief over the little boy who'd trusted him, the little boy he'd failed to protect. He ruthlessly pushed the feelings aside; they were useless to him, and would only hamper him in the fight. There would be time to grieve, later, after they'd stopped Wyatt.

"She _what_?" Ava demanded, incredulously, having overheard him. "Deena was working for the demons?" When Chris nodded, Ava snarled, softly. "That _bitch_. I brought her in. I _trusted_ her."

"We all trusted her," Billie said, reassuringly, as she and Christy joined the group. "What happened?" the older woman asked Chris.

"I orbed into the safe house with Malcolm," Chris replied, "and everything seemed fine. Deena and Lew were watching tv, and Cassie was in the kitchen getting something to eat." He shook his head, regretfully, hating how he'd let himself be lulled into a false sense of security. "I wasn't even there ten minutes before X shimmered in."

"She was after Malcolm," Christy guessed, and Chris nodded.

"As far as I could tell," he replied. "That has to be why she came in when she did. She was waiting for us to bring Malcolm out of hiding."

"And to deliver him straight to Wyatt," Ava said, a bitter tone in her voice. "But, wait, you said that Deena killed Malcolm. If she was working for Wyatt-"

"She was aiming for Cassie," Chris replied, "and Malcolm jumped in the way, trying to protect her. He got hit with an energy ball; he was incinerated instantly."

"How did Deena die?" Sam prompted, gently, when Chris fell silent.

"X had me in her sights," Chris told them. "I moved out of the way when I saw her getting ready to attack, I got behind Deena – she was slow," he said, still puzzled. "X is never slow, but, she slipped up, and she killed Deena instead of me. And then she ran."

"Maybe she knew she was outnumbered with you, Lew, and Cassie there," Christy commented. "Decided that discretion was her best bet, and ran away to lick her wounds."

"She didn't have any wounds," Chris shot back. "Honestly, I have no idea why she ran away. She could have easily killed us all."

"Maybe she didn't want to kill you," Leo spoke up, for the first time. He closed his book as he came over to the rest of the group, a pensive look on his face. "Maybe she was never aiming at you. Maybe she was aiming at Deena the whole time."

"Right," Chris scoffed, in disbelief. "Wyatt's second in command, his most trusted lieutenant, just happens to be secretly working for our side. I don't think so."

"You said it, yourself," Leo replied, calmly. "She killed Deena, who betrayed us. Killed her own demon. X doesn't miss."

Chris shook his head, frustrated. "It doesn't make any sense," he told Leo. "X is completely loyal to Wyatt. She would never turn on him."

"Maybe she's not," Leo said, and Chris practically growled at the cryptic tone in his father's voice. "When Malcolm died," Leo went on, "did you actually see a body?"

"What part of completely incinerated was unclear?" Chris snapped, but he found himself talking to thin air when Leo orbed away in the middle of their conversation. "Yeah," he muttered, under his breath. "It was nice talking to you, too, Dad."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. You guys rock.

To the guest who asked: yes, Paige is Chris's mother. This series is modeled after a fic I wrote several years ago, and that was the premise of the fic, and it isn't going to change.

* * *

Leo orbed to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge to find someone waiting for him. X was an enigma. To Wyatt, she was a friend and ally. To the Resistance, she was the enemy. But, every time Leo looked at her, all he saw was Paige's lost little girl.

X had her arms crossed over her chest as she stared out at the water, seeming to ignore his presence as he orbed in behind her.

"You know," she remarked, idly, without turning around, "I could turn you into Wyatt right now, and I'd have his trust for life."

"You won't," Leo said, quietly, getting a shrug from the younger woman.

"I might," she commented. "The bounty on your head is surpassed only by your son's. Excuse me," she added, an insincere tone in her voice. "Your _other_ son."

"If you were going to turn me in," Leo pointed out, "we wouldn't still be talking. I would already be in chains."

"Maybe I'm lulling you into a false sense of security," X suggested. She finally turned around to look at him, an amused expression on her face. "What can I help you with, Elder?"

"Malcolm Montana-Calloway," Leo told her. "I want him back."

X affected a surprised look, raising an eyebrow at him. "I would have thought that you would have heard, by now," she said. "Your little projector is dead."

"Now, see, I just don't believe you," Leo replied, undaunted. "Malcolm was ten years old, X. You don't go after kids. You never have."

"I didn't fire the kill shot," X reminded him.

"No," Leo agreed. "But, you remotely orbed him out of the house, didn't you?" X actually blinked at his words, and Leo allowed himself a small smile at having surprised her. "It takes a powerful demon to create an energy ball strong enough to instantly incinerate a human being. Someone like Deena, who's only been evil for, what, a month at most? She's not going to be able to generate that kind of firepower. You, however, could orb Malcolm to safety, and ignite the air in his wake. Simple matter for someone with your skill."

X shrugged, but she didn't immediately refute his words. Leo knew that he was on the right track.

"Where's Malcolm?" he pressed, insistently.

X glared at him, energy crackling at her fingertips as she flexed her hands into fists. It was such a Paige gesture that Leo felt his breath catch in his throat. Her green eyes sparked with anger, but Leo refused to back down. She wasn't going to hurt him; he would already be dead if that was her plan.

"The kid's safe," she finally, grudgingly, told him.

"Where?" Leo repeated.

"Somewhere safe," X told him, with a stubborn tilt of her chin. "Somewhere that your people – or Wyatt – will never find him."

"We want the same thing," Leo tried. "We want to keep Malcolm safe, too."

"No," X spit at him, "you want to turn him into a soldier. You want to take him, and his amazing power, and you want to turn him into a weapon. You want to turn him into a killer."

"We do?" Leo ventured, carefully. "Or Wyatt does?"

"What does it matter?" X asked, a bitter tone in her voice. "In this, you're all the same."

"I'm fighting to save the world from Wyatt," Leo pointed out.

"You turned one son against the other," X accused him, and Leo fought to keep from flinching at the words that hit far too close to home. "You're destroying one son to try and save the other."

Leo tried to remind himself that X was psychic, that she was deliberately using his doubts and fears against him, but it was hard not to deny the truth in her words. He'd already ruined Chris's life, in ways his son would never even know, and nothing he did could ever make up for it.

_'It would serve you right,'_ a little voice whispered in his mind, _'if he hated you, forever.'_ Leo gave the telepath an impassive look as he determinedly pushed her out of his mind.

"Struck a nerve, did I?" X smirked at him, but Leo wasn't going to let her get to him.

"Why didn't you kill Chris?" he wanted to know. "Why kill Deena, instead? She was on your side."

"I was aiming at your son," X protested. Leo shook his head.

He already had a pretty good idea why X would never hurt Chris. Her psychic abilities, as well as the Whitelighter half she ruthlessly tried to suppress, identified Chris as family on a subconscious, soul-deep level. She was connected to Chris, even if she didn't understand how, and that connection made her hesitate every time they met. He'd seen it happen before, between the two of them, with X sparing Chris on other occasions, and Chris displaying the same, odd reluctance to strike out at X. They couldn't, _wouldn't_, hurt each other.

"If you'd really been aiming at Chris," Leo told her, "I'd be burying my baby boy, right now. You don't miss."

"So, I took out a demon," X said, with a shrug. "Are you really complaining?"

"We could have tried to save her," Leo commented.

"No," X refuted. "There was something twisted in that girl, something the demons broke when they kidnapped her as a baby. What you rescued was a shell of who she might have been."

"So, you vanquished her," Leo remarked.

"Part of my job is protecting Wyatt from all threats," X told him. "Including his own bad judgment. He thought the girl could be trusted. She would have turned on us as easily as she turned on you. I took care of her before she could become a threat to either of us. You're welcome," she added, with a small, wry smile. After a moment, she went on, "This is usually the part where you say thank you."

"Thank you," Leo parroted, dryly. "Thank you for saving Malcolm," he added, softer. "Thank you for sparing those kids. Thank you for letting my son come home to me."

X inclined her head in a silent acknowledgement. She went back to staring pensively out at the water, but she didn't immediately shimmer away from him. Leo stood on his side of the tower, watching her.

"You could come home," he finally suggested, his tone gentle.

"I have no home with you," X said, her voice flat and toneless.

"You could," Leo entreated. "It's still not too late. Pax-"

"Don't," the younger woman interrupted him, her voice sharp with anger. "Don't call me that. That person is dead."

"She's still alive," Leo corrected her. "In the one who saved a child, who spared my son's life. She's just buried."

"Dead," X snapped, furiously. "Stay away from me, Elder. Or I will turn you in, next time. Do not test my mercy."

She shimmered away without another word, and Leo sighed, his shoulders slumping. After a moment, he orbed back to Valhalla.

Chris was sitting with Josh, Cole, Sam, and Ava at the table. They were all clustered around the maps, Josh gesturing emphatically as he talked. Chris very pointedly ignored Leo's arrival into the meeting hall, his gaze fixed squarely on the book open in front of him. Leo supposed that he deserved that.

"All the time travel spells we have access to are crap," Cole said, by way of greeting, and Leo groaned.

They'd lost the Book of Shadows to Wyatt, when he'd claimed his magical heritage in the beginning of his reign. Apparently, whichever Warren witch had enchanted the Book to protect itself against evil had never stopped to consider the possibility of a descendant being evil, and now the Book was squarely out of their reach. And all of its spells, with it.

"Well," he replied, "they're kind of all we've got, so we have to make due the best we can."

"Can't you just write a new spell?" Ava asked, curiously.

Leo was confused for a moment, and then he was sharply reminded that Romani magic didn't rely on spells the way that Wiccan magic did. Their magic incorporated some spellcasting, but not nearly the scope and breadth that witches used it for. Ava had probably never even written a spell of her own, had never seen any need to.

"It's not quite that easy," he explained. "Writing a spell isn't as simple as stringing together a bunch of rhyming words."

From the way Ava's arms were folded across her chest, and the raised eyebrow she gave him, that had come out a lot more condescending than he'd intended. Leo shot a quick glance over at Cole, but his brother-in-law just shook his head, raising his hands in silent surrender. You dug this hole, and you can climb out on your own, he seemed to be saying.

Leo supposed that he deserved _that_, too.

"There's a reason it's called spellcraft," he tried again, but that wasn't going to come out any better than his first attempt.

"Spells are complicated," Chris spoke up, into the silence that followed Leo's aborted attempt at an explanation. "They don't have to rhyme, but the whole rhyming thing started because it's easier to keep the tempo, that way. You've got to make sure to say everything you want to happen, like an instruction manual, and you've got to be completely specific, or someone's going to wind up with an ear growing out of their forehead."

"Again," Josh interrupted him, a teasing note in his voice, and Chris turned just far enough to stick his tongue out at his cousin.

"And the more you complex the task you're trying to accomplish," Chris continued, as if Josh hadn't even spoken, "the more complicated the spell is going to be. If you want to create a burst of wind, or light something on fire, that's easy. You're just accelerating the natural process of something that has the potential to happen. But, things don't usually explode for no reason, or spontaneously change color, and so those kinds of spells are going to be harder. The wording has to be more precise, more deliberate."

"And when you're trying to do something that never occurs naturally," Josh said, "like time travel, then you've got to be meticulous. There's no room for errors, because you could wind up off by five minutes, five months, or five thousand years. Or you could reform inside a wall, or into a place where there is no air. And that's if the spell backfire doesn't just rip you to pieces, first."

Ava looked slightly green when they'd finished. Probably the whole 'rip you to pieces' part; being a surgeon, she wouldn't have to work too hard to imagine what that would look like.

"So, no writing your own spell, then," she said, faintly.

"Not without putting a few hundred hours into it, first," Chris confirmed.

Ava shook her head, looking confused. "So, wait a minute. If it's so dangerous to attempt brand-new time travel spells, then how did any of the spells in the Book ever get written?"

"You've heard of the experimental method?" Cole asked, wryly. "They experimented. Hours and hours of testing and refining their spells on things like fruit, and books, and whatever else they could get their hands on. Demons do the same thing when creating their spells," he added, when he got surprised looks from everyone else in the room. "They just prefer experimenting on lesser demons."

"Okay, we won't be doing that," Ava declared, as if anyone had even been thinking of it. "Which begs the question, what spell will you be using? If all the spells we have are crap-"

"So, we won't use a spell," Leo spoke up. When everyone looked over at him, he added, "I'm still an Avatar."

"You're one Avatar, without a Collective," Cole reminded him. "Even if you could muster enough power to send Josh and Chris into the past, you have no way of controlling where they'll end up."

"Well, I'm not willing to risk their safety to an inaccurate spell," Leo shot back, "and if we take the time to create a specialized one, we run the risk of being found and killed."

"Maybe it won't be that risky to use a spell," Chris suggested. "Josh and I were talking about it, and we're not really going that far back. I mean, we just need to go back to when Wyatt turned, right? It's not even ten years."

"Actually," Leo sighed, "I think you're going to have to go back further than that."

"How much further?" Josh asked, skeptically.

"Twenty years or so," Leo replied. "Back to when Wyatt was still a baby." He sighed, heavily, thinking. "Wyatt was a target for evil, even before he was born," he explained. "And after he was born, demons wanted to kill him, turn him, or use him as a source of power. For a while, there, there wasn't a week where we weren't fending off some kind of attack. And that kind of thing, the trauma it causes, it can have a lasting effect."

"You think Wyatt's corruption has been building over the years?" Cole asked, and Leo nodded.

"Everything that's happened to Wyatt," he said, "the Cult of the Destroyer, Paige's death, Piper's death, he's been sliding toward evil this whole time, and I didn't notice until it was too late."

"We're going to fix it," Cole said, clapping Leo on the shoulder. "Are you sure you can harness enough power to send them back?"

"I can draw on my connection to the other Elders," Leo told them. "It's not the same kind of power as the Avatar Collective, but it should be enough."

"What about getting back?" Chris asked, but Josh waved away his concern with a wave of his hand.

"Return spells are the easy part," he replied. "It's getting back to the past in the first place that's going to be tough." He cast an expectant look at Leo.

"I've got you covered," Leo reassured him. "Leave the time travel up to me. You guys just focus on saving Wyatt."

Then, before he could lose his nerve, or change his mind, Leo held his hands out in front of him. Soft, golden energy flowed from his hands, knitting a pattern in the air. Sweat beaded on his brow as he concentrated, focusing on making the magic bend to his will.

It was harder than he'd anticipated; he hadn't drawn on his Avatar powers since the day he'd helped destroy Utopia, destroy the rest of the Collective, and it burned to use that magic, like exercising a muscle that had atrophied. But, he forced himself to move past the pain. There was too much at stake for him to slip up for even a second.

Finally, a glowing portal floated in the middle of the meeting hall. Exhausted, he let his hands fall to his sides, careful not to dispel the portal with the movement.

"There you go," he said, slumping against the wall behind him for a moment. "One portal to the past."

"Guess there's nothing left to do but step through," Chris said, eyeing the portal like he thought it was going to bite him.

"The magic works through willpower, so you need to focus on when you want to go back to," Leo told him, getting a nod from Josh. Chris wasn't even looking at him, his attention solely on the portal.

"Chris," Leo said, abruptly, stopping his son before he could disappear through the portal, "can we talk for a second?"

"Sure," Chris agreed, after a moment of hesitation, following Leo to a quiet corner of the room. "What's up?" he asked, when they were alone.

"I-" Leo started, but then he hesitated, torn.

There was so much that he wanted to tell his son, so much that he deserved to know. The truth about his mother, about X, about how Leo had been lying to him for almost his entire life. But the words caught in his throat. Telling Chris the truth now, no matter how well deserved, would tear apart everything he thought he knew about his life. And it could distract him, put him in danger in some, critical moment. And Leo couldn't do that to him.

But, if he didn't tell him, Chris would go on living a lie. And if the truth finally came out – _when_, Leo corrected himself, bitterly, because of course it would come out – Chris would hate him. Paige and Piper would hate him.

And then there was always the chance, remote though it may be, that by going into the past distracted by Leo's revelation, Chris would inadvertently alter things enough that he would never be conceived in the first place. And the thought of losing his son made Leo's heart stop in his chest.

"Hey," Chris said, abruptly, breaking into Leo's thoughts. "What's wrong? Josh and I need to get going."

"It's time travel," Josh teased, overhearing Chris's comment. "It's not like we're going to be late."

"Nosy," Chris shot back, and from the way Josh laughed, it was clear that they were continuing an old argument. "So, what did you need?" he prompted, turning his attention back to Leo.

Leo could practically feel his courage deserting him in the face of Chris's impatience. He opened his mouth, but the words died on his tongue. Chris heaved a sigh when Leo stayed silent, flicking his gaze over Leo's shoulder to where Josh was waiting for him. His fingers drummed impatiently on his bicep, his arms crossed over his chest, and there was a barely disguised annoyance on his face. It was an expression that was all-too-common when he looked at his father.

Leo knew that he was to blame for the distance between himself and his youngest son. And he had no idea how to heal the cracks in their relationship.

Chris sighed, again, reminding Leo that he was still waiting. Leo wracked his mind for something, anything, that would be plausible for calling Chris over, and he remembered his conversation with X.

"Malcolm's alive," he blurted out, and surprise flashed across Chris's face before it smoothed away into practiced neutrality.

"I saw-" he argued, and Leo shook his head, cutting him off.

"What you saw was the air igniting in the wake of his teleport," he explained. "Malcolm's not dead. He's safe."

"Where?" Chris asked, shortly, and Leo breathed a quiet sigh of relief that Chris at least trusted him that much, that he believed that Malcolm was alive.

"I'm working on that one," Leo promised him.

"I promised Malcolm that I would keep him safe," Chris said, something like pain flashing briefly across his face, before it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"I know," Leo told him. "Chris, I swear, I'm going to find Malcolm and I'm going to bring him back here. I swear."

Chris looked doubtful, but he finally nodded. "Thanks for telling me," he said, gruffly. "I've got to go."

Spinning on his heel, he stalked away from Leo without another word. He joined Josh at the portal, and they went through, shoulder to shoulder, disappearing into the golden energy.

"Stay safe," Leo whispered, watching his son go. "I love you."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. You guys rock.

* * *

_**September, 2002**_

_**Previously on: **_

_Paige watched Piper and Leo orb out of the attic, still laughing, and then she made a beeline for the Book. The pages were already flipping, and when she reached the lectern, it was already open to the blood to blood summoning spell. _

_"Thanks, Prue," Paige murmured, as she grabbed the notepad they kept near the Book, scribbling down the words of the spell. "Hang on, Pax. I'm coming, baby. I'm coming."_

_**Now: **_

Paige strapped a dagger into the sheath on her left arm, making sure the straps were secure before she pulled her sleeve down. She was similarly outfitted with half a dozen other weapons that she'd raided from the cache; she didn't want to have to use any of them, praying that Pax's rescue went smoothly, and she was able to get her daughter out of the Underworld without any kind of incident. But, she was also a realist, and she knew that whatever demon had taken her daughter wasn't likely to release his hold on her, lightly.

And she was more than ready to fight for her child's life.

When Leo orbed into the attic, she glanced up briefly from the explosion potion she was bottling. "Hey."

"Hey, yourself," Leo returned. "I was going to ask you if you wanted to come with me when I went to talk to the Elders, but it looks like you're already busy." He eyed the ingredients spread out on the low table, brows knitting together as he ran through possible combinations in his mind. "Um, that's some firepower you've got there. You're not planning on starting a war sometime soon, are you?"

"Not unless they want one," Paige replied, absently.

In return, she got a raised eyebrow from Leo, along with the Look she'd learned to give her own charges, the one that said, "I am your wise and all-knowing Whitelighter, and I Do Not Approve of whatever you're about to do." Unfortunately for Leo, Paige bought it from him about as well as her charges bought it from her. That was his fault, though, for teaching it to her in the first place.

"Who are _they_?" Leo finally asked, when the Look did nothing to sway her.

Paige glanced up at him and hesitated. Her first instinct, as it had been ever since Pax's disappearance, was to hide her little girl's memory away where she didn't have to think about how much it hurt. But, that was when she thought Pax was gone forever, when she wasn't about to get her back. And this was Leo, the man who'd walked her through her guilt over her parents' death, who'd taught her how to be a Whitelighter. If she couldn't trust him…

"_They_ are the demons that kidnapped my daughter," Paige said, slowly, waiting for Leo's reaction.

And she had to admit that she was a little disappointed. While she hadn't really been expecting him to fall on the floor in a dead faint, a little shock wouldn't have been out of place. Instead, Leo didn't even seem fazed by her announcement.

"Leo?" she prompted, curiously, and Leo shrugged.

"I've been your Whitelighter for years," he reminded her. "I got you assigned as a charge shortly after Pax was kidnapped."

"But, not before?" Paige asked, and Leo shook his head.

"I didn't know about you, or her, until after," he said, quietly. "Believe me, Paige, if you'd been my charge before, I would have protected you both. I swear." Looking down at the table again, he added, "I take it from the arsenal that you've found the demons who took Pax?"

"Even better," Paige replied, savoring the confused look that flashed momentarily across Leo's face. "I found Pax. Well, I don't know exactly where she is," she hastened to add. "But, I'm going to use the same tracking spell that I used to find Josh, and I'm her mother, which makes the connection even stronger-"

"Paige-" She heard Leo's weak protest, but she was so excited, she barely even heard him.

"You could come with me," she said, quickly warming to the idea. "I could use the backup, and I know you're a pacifist, but if things go south, you can orb Pax out of the Underworld while I hold the demons off-"

"Paige!" He was louder, this time, and Paige stopped in the middle of her ramble to look over at Leo. He had a pained look on his face. "Paige, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Pax is gone."

"No," Paige told him, refusing to let his words deter her. "No, see I thought that, too, but in the alternate universe, Pax was alive. I saw her; I had her in my arms. She's alive here, too, Leo."

"No," Leo said, regretfully, shaking his head. "She's not. Paige, believe me, I wish she was. I would do anything to be able to bring your daughter back to you. But I can't. She's gone."

"You don't know that." The denial sprang automatically to Paige's lips, even as Leo's words sent a spike of pain straight to her heart. "The Underworld is – is _huge_, and even Cole doesn't know everywhere that's down there, and he's been there for a hundred years-" Tears choked her throat, making it hard to talk.

"Paige," Leo said, his voice unbearably gentle, "some of my charges, the few I could trust, knew that another charge had lost a child to the Underworld. They were on the lookout for anything that might lead me to Pax, and a few years ago, a charge in South Africa found a body in one of the uninhabited sections."

"It might not be her," Paige protested, getting a sympathetic look from Leo.

"I performed the detection spells, myself," he told her, quietly. "I used your blood. Do you remember when your dishwasher was on the fritz, and I fixed it-"

"And I cut my hand on a broken glass," Paige finished for him, heavily. "But, that was when I first moved into my apartment."

"I kept the handkerchief that I'd wrapped your hand up in," Leo replied. "I actually broke that glass, deliberately," he confessed, sounding a little sheepish. "I couldn't exactly come right out and ask you for some blood; you would have called the cops. So, I fudged a little."

"I want to see her," Paige demanded, glaring at Leo when he shook his head, quickly. "Leo-"

"Paige, no," he protested. "You don't want to see this. Trust me. You don't."

"She's my daughter," Paige insisted.

"I know," Leo said. "I know. But, Paige, you shouldn't see her like this. You should remember her as you last saw her."

"The last time I saw Pax," Paige snapped, tears welling in her eyes, "she was dying in my arms in an alternate universe!"

Stumbling blindly away from the table, Paige sank onto the couch and buried her face in her hands. The cushions sank down as Leo sat down next to her, wrapping am arm around her shoulders. Paige leaned against him, pressing her face against his shoulder, but the tears refused to fall.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" she finally whispered, pulling away from Leo to look plaintively at him. "Or, Prue, Piper, and Phoebe? If you had people looking, why not them? The most powerful witches in the world?"

"I wasn't allowed," Leo said, with a sigh. "I wanted to. But, I wasn't allowed."

"I don't understand," Paige said, confused.

"I was prevented by the Elders," Leo told her, regret heavy in his voice. "Before Penny's death, she'd asked me to look after her family, including you. Per her wishes, I was going to seal the Book away, so that your sisters would never gain their powers. But, I was found out.

"I was approached by two of the senior-most Elders on the council, and they knew what I was planning. They wouldn't let me hide the Book, claiming that it interfered with your sisters' destiny. And the same went for telling them about you, and vice versa. When I challenged them on it, Zola threatened to have my soul recycled. He cited the Greater Good."

"Greater Good?" Paige echoed, something buzzing faintly at the back of her mind. "That – that sounds familiar. Oh, my god," she gasped, a moment later, and Leo looked alarmed.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and Paige bolted upright in her seat.

"Zola," she asked him, urgently. "Big black guy wearing white robes?"

"That was Zola," Leo confirmed, slowly, and Paige swore under her breath as the memories trickled back, slowly.

"That son of a bitch took Pax," she told him, watching Leo's eyes widen in surprise. "I – it was a few months after she went missing, and I was in Golden Gate Park, and she was there. My baby girl was there, and then this, this man took her away. And then he – he told me that I would never see her again. That it was for the Greater Good."

"Zola." Now it was Leo's turn to swear, vibrantly and in several languages Paige didn't know that he knew. "_Damn him_. Zola's dead," he added, in response to the question that Paige didn't think she could bring herself to ask. "I confronted him about Pax; he wouldn't admit to having anything to do with her disappearance, but he told me that if I tried to have any contact with you, then I would be recycled. He was dead the next day."

"Why would an Elder take my daughter?" Paige demanded. "I could understand a demon, but an Elder?"

"I don't know," Leo replied, sounding frustrated. "I don't know if he was working alone, or with someone, or why he would possibly want to take your daughter away from you."

Paige stared down at the floor, like she was going to find the answer hidden in the floorboards. Then, something horrible occurred to her, and she desperately prayed that she was wrong.

"What if he was working with demons?" she suggested.

Once again, though, Leo didn't look surprised by her revelation. Instead, he looked resigned.

"I've always suspected," he told her, quietly. "The way Zola acted before he died, why he would even think of endangering a child like that-"

"But, why would an Elder work with a demon?" Paige interrupted him, distress tingeing her tone. "And why Pax? Why my baby?"

"I don't know," Leo replied. "Penny suspected that it was because you're a Halliwell, and half-Whitelighter on top of it. A child with that kind of magical heritage would be-"

He broke off, a blush coloring his cheeks, but Paige could hear the words he hadn't spoken.

"Would be a valuable commodity, right?" she finished, softly. "Pax would have grown to be a powerful witch; they would have wanted to use her power for themselves. But, then why would they kill her? She was alive in the other universe."

"Maybe they didn't intend to kill her," Leo said. "Maybe it was an accident, or-"

"I can't do this," Paige said, abruptly, her words coming out in a rush. "I'm sorry, but I can't-"

"Hey," Leo said, gently, cutting her off as she started to hyperventilate. "Breathe, okay?" He had his hands on her shoulders, and she glanced up to see concern reflected in his eyes. "You're okay."

"I'm not," Paige insisted, automatically, but she didn't pull away from Leo. Instead, she leaned toward him as he wrapped his arms around her, letting some of his warmth and strength leech into her chilled skin.

"You should get out of here for a while," Leo suggested, gently, after a few minutes. "Take off, go somewhere to clear your head, think."

Paige nodded, wordlessly. Lifting her head from where it had fallen on Leo's shoulder, she pulled away from his loose embrace.

"Thank you for telling me," she said, only faltering a little bit over the difficult words. She started slowly, methodically stripping off the weapons she'd armed herself with, placing them carefully on the table. "I – I know it had to have been hard."

"Paige-" Leo started, but she shook her head, cutting him off. Tears blinding her, she orbed out of the attic.

She didn't keep track of where she orbed. She moved from place to place, never staying in one spot for very long, not giving anything around her time to sink in. She just kept orbing, over and over for hours, until she was completely exhausted. She could barely keep her eyes open, swayed on her feet as she tried to stay upright.

_'Home,'_ she thought, the word coming sluggishly to her, and she orbed again without consciously thinking about it.

When she reformed, she wasn't in her bedroom in the Manor. Instead, she was standing in the middle of Henry's apartment. She stared down at the couch in front of her, at the thick blanket that Sharon had crocheted for Henry, bright colors swirling into each other in front of her tired eyes. She was so cold.

Paige laid down on the couch before she could think about what she was doing, toeing her shoes off and pulling the blanket over her shoulders, smelling Henry on the warm, soft material. She rested her head on the armrest, letting her eyes fall closed, and she was asleep within seconds.

* * *

Henry yawned as he juggled bags of groceries with the keys to his apartment. Unlocking his door, he flicked his wrist and tossed the keys into the air, grinning happily when they landed neatly in one of the bags.

"Score!"

Chuckling, he managed a quick twist of the doorknob that opened the door without spilling any of the bags, and then he nudged it shut behind him when he stepped into the dark apartment. The latch clicked shut, and he managed to use his elbow to nudge the lock into place. But, no amount of contortions would allow him to flick the light on without dropping the groceries, and he eventually just picked his way slowly through the dark apartment to the kitchen.

He put his groceries away, quickly, the light from the fridge dying after he'd shut the door, plunging the room back into darkness. It also muffled the low hum of the fridge motor, and he was acutely aware of how silent his apartment had suddenly become.

As he made his way through the darkness to the living room, still not bothering with the light, Henry wondered if he should get a dog. He'd never had one as a kid, and it would be nice to have someone to come home to at night, someone who lit up when he walked into the room. Even if that someone was covered in fur, and had a cold nose.

But, then, he didn't have the biggest apartment, and even a small dog would start to feel cooped up, especially with his long hours at work. And it wasn't like a dog could learn to use a toilet, so he was either looking at hiring a dog walking service, which would likely be expensive, or crating the poor thing the whole day and cleaning up a lot of messes.

Okay, so a dog was out. Maybe if he ever got some actual free time on his hands, but not right now. But, he could still get a cat. Cats were independent, they tended to take care of themselves when their people weren't around. And if he got two, they could amuse each other when he was gone, and a litter box would solve the whole cleaning issue-

Henry grinned, energized by the thought. He couldn't wait to drag Paige out to the shelter with him that weekend, and listen to her try to convince him to take home every kitten in the place. Not that he suspected she'd have to try very hard. He was sure if he looked hard enough, he'd find the perfect cat, and then he'd have someone to come home to, at night, someone who curled up on the couch while waiting for him to come home.

Kind of like the blanket-covered figure currently occupying his couch.

Henry moved cautiously toward the couch, but he wasn't too worried. He didn't think a burglar would be so stupid as to fall asleep in the apartment while trying to rob him, but then, he'd heard some stories from patrol officers that highlighted the sheer stupidity of the criminal element.

_'Just my luck,'_ Henry thought, wryly, _'I'm going to wind up with the only narcoleptic crook in San Francisco.'_

Reaching out, he twitched the edge of the blanket away from the figure, and then he stared, dumbfounded, down at Paige's sleeping form, bathed in the moonlight coming from the window. He was taken aback by the very obvious tear tracks on her cheeks, and the red, puffy skin under her eyes. Something was wrong.

He didn't think it was anything with her sisters. If something had happened to Piper or Phoebe, Leo would have called and warned him. But, he knew whatever it was, it was nothing good, not if it drove Paige to his dark apartment in tears.

Crouching down next to the couch, Henry carded his fingers gently through Paige's short hair, feeling her stir under his hand. "Paige? Hey, sweetie, are you awake?"

Paige blinked at him, eyes fluttering open. "Henry?"

"Hey," he repeated, as she focused on him. "Are you okay?"

Paige was silent for several long moments, and then she shook her head, her eyes falling shut. "No," she finally whispered.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Henry ventured, getting another head shake, Paige not even lifting her head from the couch. "Okay," he said, softly, in reply.

He nudged Paige's shoulder, and she sat up, slowly, her movements sluggish as if she was still half asleep. Sitting down beside her, Henry moved his seat into a reclining position, and Paige curled up against him with her head on his chest. He could feel minute tremors wracking her body, turning into full-blown sobs, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling the blanket around them both.

"Okay," he murmured, again, as she let the tears flow. "Okay."


End file.
